Join our Email List

Name(required)

Email(required)

The above email list will get you directly in touch with us and you will receive all of our email updates on writing events, workshops and publishing opportunities in the state, and sometimes outside the state! Or, you can CLICK HERE to go and like our facebook page to stay in touch.

For many years, we supported ourselves with donations, book sales, and a few grants. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to fund our books. Without your support and donations, there would be no Jackpine Writers’ Bloc and no Talking Stick books. Remember, your tax donation is tax deductible. We are a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization.

September 19th 2004

Today we had our September meeting at Beagle Books in Park Rapids. The next meeting will be held on Sunday, October 24, from 1:30 to 4 PM at Beagle Books in Park Rapids. Present today were: Russ, LuAnne, Tarah, Sharon, Lanita and Steve. Jerry was not able to attend, but called in and said that he wanted to meet with Cindie and Sharon and discuss next year’s party at the Long Lake Theater. Also, he stated that he would be attending the Sinclair Lewis writing conference that we had e-mailed to everyone. He will let us know how it goes.

TALKING STICK 13:

We have gotten back the first proof of TS13. We had a couple of changes and the proof has been sent back. We expect the completed book sometime in October. We will be calling Morris Publishing to check on the completion date soon. We need to start thinking about the book release party. Perhaps we could have it late in October — otherwise we will probably wait till after Deer Hunting. We also need to start working on the news releases.

BOOKSTORES:

We need to be contacting the bookstores that were selling TS12 and let them know that TS13 will soon be available.

SECOND SUNDAY:

We are signed up to do a reading at New York Mills Cultural Center on Sunday, October 10. We are asking JWB members to volunteer to read, either from TS12 or TS13. Please e-mail Sharon at sharrick@wcta.net if you can read that day. We believe it is from 3 to 5 PM.

HACKENSACK ARTS FESTIVAL:

The festival appeared to be a great success. We sold some books, did some readings, talked to many people, got great comments. Tarah and Sharon had their Lines & Light display there. Tarah sold some prints and Sharon sold some of her poetry books. (Lines and Light is a display of 16 photographs by Tarah and matching poems by Sharon. They have been on display at North Country Museum in Park Rapids, New York Mills Cultural Center and at the Hackensack Arts Festival. They are scheduled to be on display at the Perham Library for October and November. In 2005, they already have two shows scheduled.

RECENT HAPPENINGS:

Yesterday there was a seminar about combining video and poetry at Beagle Books in Park Rapids. We heard that it went well and they had about 10 people in attendance. If anyone wants to send in more information on that, we would love to hear more about it.

MISCELLANEOUS:

LuAnne White brought us information on the Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning. On September 28, Anne Dunn, Native American poet, will read from her new book of poetry called Unwashed Hair. The next day at the PR library at 1 PM (Sept. 29), there will be a book discussion group led by Anne Dunn.
On October 26, Mark Vinz, Professor of English, Moorhead State and winner of three Minnesota Book Awards, will discuss sense of place in Literature. On October 28, the book discussion group at the library will discuss Inheriting the Land, Contemporary Voices from the Midwest, edited by Mark Vinz.
We discussed some software that was helpful when writing books. Write-It and Adobe Framemaker were two that were mentioned. StarOffice can be downloaded from OpenOffice.com.

READINGS:

Several people read and the others commented. It is always nice to hear writings from new people. We discussed the fact that most of us have to have passion, desire or an inspiration in order to write. Some people can sit down and write on demand, like assignments.
Great meeting. Thank you all for attending.